Chapter 01

The Witch of Aarun

[www.terranauctionhub.org]

As soon as he entered this site, floods of items that’s on sale greeted him. Rex skimmed through the items and found some really cool gadgets, inventions, armors, weapons, gears, accessories, and even Rare MODs that was on auction.

Everything was classified according to their rarity and a bidder or an item auctioneer cannot go higher than the rank on their account.

For that matter, since he was still a new member of the site, his rank is still on the lowest. What determines ranking here is whether how often you post an item and how often you get to have transactions, or, how often you buy the items that’s on sale.

He flushed his finger on the browser window and on his account that was created just two months ago, a file on .VRG format was uploaded.

He confirmed the requested operation and he saw his name [The Destroyer] flashed with a red hammer. And that’s it. An item is now posted in the site’s mainstream C-rank weapons and equipments page.

After he saw that his transaction was completed, he then put a finger on another site that features the places in Terroa that was already recorded.

Surfing through the cities, he then found the place he wanted to look at.

Kingdom of Thrall.

It was a country located at the eastern most part of the Western Continent, Espada, facing two sides of natural resources —the large open sea on the eastern horizon and the wide monster field, Magnolia Plains, on the west.

The Kingdom of Thrall is one of the 5 largest known domains in Espada. The people there are proud of their Textile Industry. There are a lot of Engineers in the Kingdom of Thrall since it was one of the first places that opened up since the release of RPG: Terroa. Those Engineers are the players who once had a Hybrid build on their characters.

Since they’re already at the advanced stage of their careers, they had no choice but to advance their game style and cop up with the changing times. That is also one of the reason why they are recognized by players all around the world.

Lately, he’s actually been hanging around with one of the Top 10 most famous Engineers of Terroa, Volt.

He didn’t know it until he saw Volt’s face in the TV when a video of their last entourage in Hagonoy leaked out on the net. The video started from the moment that the dragon he’s fighting had its first Pose of the King. Luckily, the person who uploaded it took considerations on their identities so their faces were all blurred out.

But the Pose of the King…it was an ability unique to dragons that can directly spell doom for normal players.

The video lasted for a few hours, edited at that, and he was surprised to know that the people near him was actually that famous that the famed female news anchor Kathleen Brew of Terroa Day Today had recognized them despite the blurred attempt.

Rex let go of a held breath.

A few hours from now, he’ll be on his way to the Kingdom of Thrall and fulfill the deal’s conditions.

Actually, he was early by two full months until the deadline but he couldn’t waste time. He had to work fast, stake his life, bet on the shortest, most dangerous of paths to be powerful enough to get and deliver the goods that was required of him.

Five H-class Secrets.

By now, he already had one of the discounted price.

And so, as he memorized the way and location of his destination, he took a bath, excreted everything that’s needed to be dumped, and went upstairs after a last set of inspection on the vid-phone package and the house.

In his bed, the Neurolink Device that allows him to connect to the world of RPG: Terroa lay in wait.

The mask that covers half of his face locked itself on his skull (because of the Quantum Magnetic Pads Technology) and he saw the indications of time (two at that; one is GMT+8 and the other is Terroa’s time), power, net connection strength, and other standby phase icons in their colorful blinking renditions.

He let out a sigh and closed his eyes.

It‘s time.

“Game, Start!”

***

After a short travel through the worm hole, Siva opened his eyes in the Plaza Square.

He was wearing a cloak, a mask just like the one he just wore when he entered the game, newly designed silver colored polo (with intricate designs on the left sleeve), black slacks, and black formal shoes.

Except for the cloak, with his brushed up hair (with few groups separated that made it looked like a reverse antennae for an insect), he doesn’t really look like a user who plays the game fighting monsters. More like, he looked like someone attending a formal ball.

Siva clenched his fists, practicing the feel of the VR environment and when he felt that everything was right, he took the first step in the city that day.

His strides guided him to the Market Place where the NPC shops are located. There, instead of going to his usual place of hangout where the Old Man, an elderly user, was a Keeper, he went towards the Enchantment Temple.

It was a temple that looked like a depiction of the Temple of Olympus. Every bit of its external design looked Greek, including the supposedly Chinese lion statues that guarded its entrance. There were no doors since its open 24/7 and so he walked in and met with a female user working as a receptionist.

“Good Afternoon.” She greeted wearing her pretty smile. The adjective was ‘pretty’ because she’s a user from the Apollo Race. “What‘s your purpose of visit?”

“Pick up.” Said Siva and replied with a smile of his own. The receptionist blushed when she felt that their eyes met and even though Siva’s face were full of scars of battle, with his red mask with black linings covering the upper part of his face, his Apollo Race’s charms is still working perfectly well.

The girl touched the panel in front of her and an ID tag floated on Siva’s head. He walked inside, towards the stairs on the right (there‘s also one on the left), and went passed the long line of beginners waiting to be given beginner-level Mage quests.

On the second floor, another long line of users were there, waiting in line to pick up the talismans or the accessory(s) they ordered to be created.

The difference between equipments made by inventions and those created by enchantment are their usage. Enchanted Weapons have low (or none at all) physical damage but have high magical attributes while Invented Weapons (or Inventions) have high physical damage output but doesn’t have any magical attributes on them alone.

Enchantment Temples are solely for creating magical items. Meaning, it can also create equipments, just like the NPC Shops that can design armors, only, they are more inclined to have magical properties rather than defensive attributes.

Archers are those right in the middle, special cases, as it may seem.

Their damage outputs are string dependent. The bow could be an invention with strings having high durability and their arrows could be magically enhanced to give additional magical attributed damage or just a plain, normal arrow that do physical damage.

Or vise versa, or, it could be that he was a Mage that chose to use ‘imbued’ spell as arrows, or, a melee class who uses magical bows and arrows. It could be both, or any, or, the player might actually be just a pure archer.

Adding the archer’s skills and abilities, though these players lack physical defense, they make it up with their attack speed + number of arrows = damage output.

Arrow damages are actually quite pesky, especially when the archer is already a skilled bowman.

That said, inventions aren’t limited to purely those that only deals physical damage. Since Terroa is a VR MMORPG that boast about its privilege of freedom to players, depending on the equipment’s materials, any invented equipments can still be imbued with magical properties. That is, if the designer can integrate the equipment’s technological mechanisms with a magical artifact (or just any mechanical part made up of runes or talisman materials), then he can have a rare equipment with magical attributes.

The same goes for Mages who wishes to equip some real weapons with real damage. After all, though magic damage is incredibly high, it is still manna dependent.

And for normal Mages, using magic 18 times during a two minute combat is already a feat in itself, with the adds of an accessory that grants manna regeneration (which is actually very rare) as back up item. So, when facing those times when the fight is getting tough, one had to always own an invention in his arsenal.

In this regard, Siva treat himself as extremely lucky.

All these time, he’s been only using Invention aided CQC as his manner of fighting and hasn’t really used any magically inclined attacks.

That’s because not only he doesn’t have Talismans (which is the medium for magic spells) in his arsenal, it’s also because he lack the aptitude to actually memorize symbols for the magical spells. If he had to put it in words, he was so engrossed to mastering CQC that he doesn’t have time to choose the best spell for his chosen fighting style.

But now it’s different.

As he waited in line, he looked around and saw some already advanced level Mages waiting behind him.

One face in particular was a face commonly seen in the Walled City of Aarun —as of late. She is Rafaela, a Mage, a slang in Terroa for those who favored to use magic as their main fighting style. Actually, in all of the games, even if not Terroa, when a player uses a sword to use in his fighting style, he’s automatically called a Swordsman. Those who chose a bow are Archers and a player who uses magic as his weapon is a Mage.

At that, Rafaela is a famous Mage.

She’s from the Maven Race.

Tall, beautiful, voluptuous with all the curves and bumps on the right places, and her fashion sense was that of the traditional female mage, not a Witch, with a touch of seduction.

Unlike Samara who’s a Witch only by appearance, Rafaela had probing eyes and long laid black and grey hair that mysteriously matched her seductive posture. She had melon-sized bosoms and she was always surrounded by her fans wherever she go.

She’s not old at all respect, it’s just that grey strikes on her hair are the main physical feature of a player from the Maven Race.

When their eyes met, though Siva’s was covered by the mask, Rafaela suddenly wore this smile that froze him on his feet. One reason for this is because from the memory of the last time he and Rafaela have met. It was outside the city, in the last forest near Aarun that Siva had never been to, the B-rank monster infested forest, Baal Woods, he was in the middle of practicing using his new equipment when Rafaela saw him and intruded.

Rafaela was of course surprised when she saw the grade of his equipment and Siva’s fighting style but if he was to be asked, Rafaela’s real purpose in meddling on his practice is because of pure habit. She had this habit of toying around on anything that has piqued her curiosity. And at that, he just became the subject of one of her habitual curiosity fits.

Not minding the other people in line, Rafaela closed in on Siva and Siva had no choice but to look at her as she closed the gap.

Siva tried to ignore her as he leaned back to avoid touching her chest but she went and leaned to his face without restraint, acting as if to kiss him. Of course her followers reacted on this but seeing that Rafaela had no qualms on their reactions, they could only watch with envious eyes.

Nevertheless, when her kiss actually missed, Rafaela pouted and embraced Siva instead.

“Hey stop it!” Siva tried to push her arms away but alas, even though she was a Mage, her strength is in some way superior to his and he was left with no choice but to endure the embarrassment.

“I missed you.” She teasingly said and rubbed her face on his cheek. Her chest pressed towards Siva’s left arm and the men in line could only clench their fists in envy and hatred. “Why are you so cold to me? After all that had happened between us that night…with those beautiful lights in the dark dim forest…”

Hearing the words, Siva’s nape felt a chill coming from behind and the gooseflesh crawled all the way to his legs. The source of the chill came from her fans and followers, included are those people, and of course, the men, who was waiting in line.

“Don’t say things that can cause misunderstanding. I already said it, I have no plans on being your follower or even your boy toy, especially that. So please, stop causing misunderstandings. And besides, don’t you have more men in your pack than you needed?”

But instead of going away, Rafaela tightened her hug and cried, with actual tears on her eyes, “H-How cruel! Tossing away a woman after you had your fill of p-p-plea…pleas…urgh…”

““RAFAELA!””

The fans cried out as she leaned back to act as if she can’t take it anymore. Siva tingled uncomfortably as the sound of 20 people screaming a single word in unison collided with his face.

The men all approached him in a marching motion and good thing that his turn came that time that he had enough time to run away from trouble. The NPC girl attending the counter only needed to see his ID tag and so in a quick movement, he snatched up a package that came from an opening on the counter and scram with all his mental might.

He never looked back. Since there are two stairs on the second floor, left and right, he took the one on the left of the building entrance and ran out.

“Wait what‘s your name?”

Rafaela’s scream echoed behind but Siva continued to run and escaped towards the streets of his base city.

When he finally looked back after a few minutes of running, he was already in the far side of the Market Place and all his angry pursuers were gone.

In here, there were only benches and a large building, the Item Trading Post, that only few, if no one, actually goes to. Not even Siva had been here.

As soon as he noticed the thinned people that was supposed to be flocking in the market, he too felt the reason why.

The Item Trading Post was established far earlier than the trading center in the city’s gates and given that it was situated far inside the city, its actual purpose was shrouded in mystery.

In front of the ITP building were benches for those who wanted to have rest from shopping. Siva sat down on one and let out a long held breath.

He glanced back to the direction of the enchantment temple and concluded that the angry fans had stopped their pursuit since he saw the last group came back to where the temple was located. And then, when all was finally clear, Siva clicked on the package he had in his lap and it vanished with a metallic sound with a VFX like a bubble, meaning it was already in his inventory.

And then he felt someone sat behind him. He did not mind it since there are plenty of bench. But then that someone spoke.

“First time seeing you here.” Siva looked back to the familiar gruffly old man tone and saw the relaxing old man, the Shop Keeper, laid back on the bench. “You‘re far way from your usual hang out place. How are ya?”

Siva smiled and also laid his back on the bench.

“Chased by angry fans of a sexy idol. Not so good.”

“Ahahaha…even with a mask, that face of yours do really attract trouble. It‘s funny because it suits you.”

“Why do I feel like it kind of went out wrong?”

The old man chuckled and turned to pat his shoulder while Siva sighed and pouted.

Then the old man stood up, carrying some supplies he bought from somewhere near. Since Siva was also headed on the same direction as the old man, he also stood up and followed him.

After a while, some young users, Archers and Mages in a uniform of some sort of Guild, approached the old man and offered help. They were all good people and Siva admired their good intentions. The old man, with his face giving the impression of age around late 50s, gave Siva a gesture and said:

“These kids are somewhat my apprentices.” Then he pointed at the kid leading the group. “That one is also working in one of the NPC Shops near mine. He’s also like you. Actually, all of them are.”

“What do you mean?” Siva frowned.

“Well, I mean they’re also unique styled players. But he’s more of a PVP than a hunter.”

“How’s that more like me?”

“That’s because I think he‘s one of the first to invent a real sniper rifle.”

“Sniper rifle?!” The word came to him as a shock.

Of course it will. A Sniper rifle?

Not only precise engineering for the measurements were needed but weight management, caliber algorithm, hammer assembly and compatibility with the trigger assembly’s timing, and the rest of the parts of the gun should be exact and working in unison.

Even professional mechanical engineers and modern gunsmiths take it a challenge to assemble a powerful enough and normal enough sniper rifle for military use.

But in Terroa, though there were the aid of the CAD system and the database of the other already invented weapons, plus the internet in downloading a sniper rifle CAD design, to actually invent a sniper rifle in Terroa would take lots of materials, resources, and actually time just to finish it. What’s actually bothering him most is the cost of making it. Cassius Clay, his former weapon, took him almost 25 million Zentra of accumulated costs of materials, resources, and cubicle rental to create it.

For any normal player, accumulating Z25M in just a span of 7 in-game months is too short. Even advanced players have to invest vast amount of time and effort to earn that much through hunting —in a party!

Siva was a lone player and only had to be with Volt and the others these last weeks. And so, if one should compute just how much effort he really put on going far for his twin guns, the nearest reference would be a car running on fumes and water for 7 months. Imagine the hardship.

As reference, when he had created Eibon and Steve on the .45 caliber handgun design, it took him almost two months inside the game just collecting all of the necessary materials for the prototype.

Everything he had then was melted and composed, patched together, then made into parts and accessories.

He used everything just to create a prototype but it was more tended to on the failure side and it took him a lot of work just to improve it along with Cassius Clay. Fighting off hordes of monsters, resting only to eat and almost not taking any breaks, he’s really gone and push himself to the limits just to improve.

That’s the reference. Multiply the hardship by the mere size of the Sniper Rifle itself, who knows just how much that guy actually went through.

He really is shocked by this. To think that someone was in the know how and actually created such fantastic weapon. Of course it was going to be a shock. If he was to be an expert on such weaponry, then maybe a fifth type of player class can be created in Terroa.

Gunslinger.

It has a nice ring to it. Who knows how many were already there like him who can use guns, except Samara who was actually a special case.

And so Siva smiled and nodded in admiration as he studied the young man. He had a good man’s face with long silvery hair (editable) from the Tekz Race which was a good combination for snipers (Archers) who rely on hand pulse stability and accurate instantaneous hand movements.

He had a natural leader aura in him. His friends there were following him while having fun talking with each other. That sight reminded him of the short times he had spent with Volt and the others and somehow, it brought him a mild pinch and a nostalgic feeling at the same time.

The way back to the Production Zone, a few blocks away from the War District, was noisy and enjoyable.

When they reached the NPC Shop where the old man worked, the young people who had helped him went on to say their goodbyes.

Why are they working in NPC shops?

That’s because there are perks on working on these establishments that can help a player’s personal improvement, not to mention that it can lead them to having an access to special information and profitable networks. Working on NPC shops not only gives you the privilege of using the cubicles for free, unlimited access to the design specs database, but you also get to learn a few things from other users that use the shop’s facilities.

Technology in Terroa, according to the storyline, had already reached that stage where weapons data can be used instantaneously by any user, given, that they are in the middle of a struggle against random alien invasion events.

Database only had one general location and so users can share and exchange data anyway they want.

Another perk on working on these shops are the availability of certain missions and quests. These quests ranges from C-rank to the actual rare and special A and S-ranks. The missions from NPC Shop owners are most of the time life threateningly hard, despite it being only a low ranked mission, probably as a camouflage.

Most reasons of players for working on NPC shops, temples, arenas, and other similar establishments are actually for such missions and quests. It’s because the rewards on these adventures are always hefty to the point that it may even give out MODs as reward during the mission.

On that matter, the expansion of shops established by NPCs are one of the ways that a user can become strong.

As standard, RPG: Terroa offers a fool proof system of every user getting stronger, whether they like it or not. It’s in the form of these quests and missions.

For beginners, the Shop Owners will send them on simple errands. As time goes by, the missions and quests become more and more challenging. Then, one day, the player may just be surprised that over the course of the months he had spent on that shop, his equipment had improved, gained experiences, had stronger weapons, and of course, been acquainted with the game’s system.

But, as said, it takes many months before any visual changes occur. And those that survive these ordeals are all assured of a good deal in the future while those who failed shall face utter extinction, while, more daring users are becoming strong by the already established way of seeking adventures ASAP.

Harsh as it may seem, but this is the reality. If we change our perspective, thinking like a Terran, getting stronger over just the course of few months is already actually fast. That’s because whenever the thinking that the world of Terroa is just a game, and that dying here only means lost money, one cannot ignore the fact that the thought of dying is just a normal happening.

That’s why there are players who take their time becoming stronger while there are those like Siva who’s been hunting everyday, just to become stronger.

“His style is hit and run.” The Shop Keeper told him. “A sniper have tremendous attack power and can kill anything with just one shot. But the downside is the rate of fire, including the weight of the weapon and the fact that sniper rifles are actually high maintenance weapons with the cost of every bullet five times higher compared to your caliber .45.”

“So at this stage, they‘re still as good as support type of players?”

“More or less. Yes.”

As the two of them watched their group leave, they in turn went inside the Old Man’s NPC Shop.

“Hey,” Siva spoke up to break the silence. “I haven‘t actually got your name.”

“Oh, really? Well then I’m Janus. And you?”

“Siva.”

They shook hands and Janus went to the counter, putting on his apron along the way. That switched the mood and Siva pressed his finger on the floating panel on the counter, in front of Janus.

As the payment (in Zentra, Terroa‘s currency) was given, a package appeared behind the counter and Janus took it to Siva.

“You really got weird ideas in your head, you know that? But I applaud you, this thing here hasn’t been done before. You might actually be the first one. Where did you get the idea?”

As Janus pushed the package, Siva pressed on it and it disappeared with the bluish white line special effects.

“From the dragon I defeated.” He answered. “It was a hard learned lesson.”

“Heh. You really are something. To actually defeat a dragon…hahaha…well then, good luck on your journey and I hope you don’t die.”

“Will do.”

The two shook hands again and Siva left the shop.

The old shop keeper followed with fleeting glance as Siva took his leave. His eyes shone a different light, as if a father departing with a son, only, Janus had a smile that told anyone he was proud of him.

“You will get what you want.” He murmured as he went back to work arranging his inventory. “Just don’t forget where you’re standing.”